


In The Reaches Of The Night

by ygrainette



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Curtain Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Femslash Yuletide, Fluff and Angst, Mockingjay Spoilers, PTSD and recovery, Post-Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrainette/pseuds/ygrainette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the cold that wakes Johanna. She comes to slowly, pulling herself inch by inch out of sleep, driven by a creeping unease, a silent sense that something is wrong. It's cold, and she reaches out to yank the blankets back from Katniss, what a bed-hog that girl is, and it's not until her fingers close on empty space that she understands.</p>
<p>The bed is empty. Katniss is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Reaches Of The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 24 of the 2014 [Femslash Yuletide](http://femslashyuletide.tumblr.com/) challenge.  
> Theme: _Sleepless_.
> 
> Set in D12, post-Mockingjay. Contains spoilers for some of the events of Mockingjay.  
> I love feedback passionately. I [ tumble.](http://capricorn-child.tumblr.com)
> 
> Content warnings: mild references to past torture, past canonical character death.

It's the cold that wakes Johanna. She comes to slowly, pulling herself inch by inch out of sleep, driven by a creeping unease, a silent sense that something is wrong. It's cold, and she reaches out to yank the blankets back from Katniss, what a bed-hog that girl is, and it's not until her fingers close on empty space that she understands.

The bed is empty. Katniss is gone.

A knee-jerk hit of adrenaline has Johanna on her feet and scrabbling for the knife she keeps in the drawer of her bedside table. Heart pounding. Thinking _threat danger enemy danger kill_ like a fire alarm screaming in her mind. Like the klaxons the Capitol used to keep her awake.

Then her conscious, rational mind wakes up, cuts through the instinctive panic. She remembers. The war is over. The _Games_ are over, for good this time ( _or so the politicians say_ ). They're in District Twelve, living a life of quiet obscurity. They are as safe as they ever will be.

Johanna tips her head back, presses the back of her arm over her eyes, breathes deep. Waits for her racing heartbeat to settle. Shuts the drawer, as quietly as she can.

Fuck, it's humiliating _still_ being like this. Leaping out of bed in a terrified cold sweat every time she hears a loud noise or she wakes up and Katniss isn't there. Weak. Johanna's spent her whole life being thought of as weak, and yeah, she's sure as hell capitalised on it when she could, but she's always hated it. Hates it even more now it feels true.

"To hell with this," she mutters.

On the top of the bedside table there's a candle in a tarnished holder – ridiculously ornate, Capitol-made – and a box of matches. The District Twelve kind of matches, ones you can strike against pretty much any hard surface. Never would have flown back home. Fire and timber don't mix.

Johanna lights a match and then the candle, blowing out the match and dropping it on the cold tile floor. She'll catch hell from Katniss about that in the morning, but she doesn't give a shit, not in the wee hours. The candle gives her enough light to locate her slippers and a heavy knitted sweater she's appropriated from Katniss, and then she feels like she might not freeze to death, and that's all she cares about.

As Johanna makes her way along the hall, down the stairs, the wind wails and moans outside, rattling the shutters. She tugs her arms as far back into the sleeves of her sweater as they will go, toes curling inside the slippers. Last week the water froze in the pipes, leaving the house without central heating. As much as she's been complaining, Johanna's kind of relishing it. After being trapped in the Capitol's gilded – and then not-so-gilded – cage, followed by all those months buried alive in Thirteen, _feeling_ the weather is almost like being able to breathe again.

Besides, it gives her an iron-clad excuse to stay wrapped around Katniss twenty-four hours a day. Her own little space heater.

Downstairs, she finds Katniss exactly where she knew she would. Sitting at one end of the long trestle table in what would be the dining room if they ever ate there, head in her hands. Staring down at Peeta's book of memories. Johanna knows without needing to check that the book will be opened to the page headed _Primrose Everdeen._

The room is almost completely dark until Johanna steps through the door, her candle throwing dancing shadows across the walls. Katniss doesn't look up. Doesn't react in any way. Must be a bad night.

Johanna pads up behind Katniss, rests a hand on her shoulder. Squeezes gently. Runs the pad of her thumb over the faded cotton of Katniss's blue nightdress. She says nothing. It's better not to. Johanna knows this about Katniss and her bad nights, the way Katniss knows it's best to react to Johanna's fits of temper and explosive crying jags with sarcasm and distractions. They understand each other's jagged edges, these days. And if each of them is still, in the reaches of the night, alone with their ghosts and their demons, they are at least alone together.

Eventually, Katniss's hand comes up to touch Johanna's tentatively. Like a skittish, mistrustful wild animal. Johanna strokes the scarred knuckles, intertwines their cold fingers. Says nothing. Grief like Katniss's, sometimes all you can do is sit with it. By now it's a permanent houseguest, and if they don't welcome it, they have at least come to an understanding.

"It's the Midwinter Festival tomorrow," Katniss says. Her voice is pale, washed-out.

"Yeah," Johanna says, tone carefully neutral. "We've got enough snow for it, that's for sure."

"Prim always loved the Festival." Beneath Johanna's palm, Katniss's shoulder hitches. Johanna puts her candle down on the table, loops her arm around Katniss's shoulders, hugging her tightly to Johanna. Katniss grips her wrist with her free hand, a drowning man clutching a lifeline. When she starts to cry, Johanna rocks her, very gently.

The tears don't last long. Katniss's never do. Her breathing quiets, and she leans her head back, pressing her face against Johanna's chest. Johanna smooths her cheek over the warm curls of Katniss's hair, inhales the smell of her.

"Okay, babe, it's freezing in here, I'mma put on a fire and make us some tea. Yeah?"

Katniss sniffs and nods. Johanna drops a brief kiss to the crown of her head before letting go of her and straightening up. On the other side of the room there are logs in the fireplace, and kindling wood, and she lights it easily with her candle. As the flames catch and grow, filling the room with that deep golden glow, Johanna smiles faintly. In the Capitol during the war, they kept her awake for so long, all those stark sickening lights – but there's something so very different about firelight. Something alive. Honest.

Fire always has been Katniss's element.

Johanna fills the tea-kettle – a beautiful old thing inherited from Katniss's mother – with bottled water, hangs it over the flames. Gets two china mugs from the cupboard, and puts one of the herbal teabags their neighbour Sae makes in each. Chamomile. It's supposed to be relaxing, to help sleep. Probably take more than that in their case, but hell, it tastes good and you may as well try.

"Here." She puts one of the mugs down in front of Katniss, beside the book, and slides into the chair next to her. "Drink up."

And Katniss wraps her fingers around the mug, brings it up to her mouth and blows on it. As she takes a sip, she tilts her body toward Johanna's, leans her head on her shoulder. "I love you," she says, quiet and hoarse and matter-of-fact.

They watch the play of flames in the grate, and listen to the unending wail of the wind. Together.


End file.
